


Takes Us All in the End

by shazzado



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, Drug Abuse, F/M, I'm Sorry, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, POV First Person, Pining, Unhappy marriage, Unrequited Love, angst without happy ending, johnlock (unrequited)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:26:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3709714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shazzado/pseuds/shazzado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I go back to the surgery. I go early, I stay late. I go for drinks at the pub with coworkers afterwards. They ask about Mary, about Willow. I respond on reflex. I keep my mobile volume turned up. My mobile stays silent."</p>
<p>What happens after the tarmac scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Takes Us All in the End

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is basically the first thing I've written in 5+ years that's been finished, and it's the first piece of fanfic I've ever attempted. So, basically, I hope it's okay. Comments are really appreciated :)

“There’s an East Wind comin’,” I say, looking towards the airplane slowly making its descent on the tarmac. Try as I might, I cannot squelch the burst of optimism I feel deep in my chest. For a moment, anyway.  
Mycroft is on his phone, barking orders in a voice harsher than any I have heard from him before. When the plan stops, I can’t stop the grin spreading across my face. You blow right past me as a man in a dark suit and an earpiece practically shoves you into the back of that car. In my mind, I like to think you try to look at me before you’re swept off. I know you don’t.   
Married to your work, right. And the game, as you said, is not over, never over, possibly even greater than ever. Of course you wouldn’t give me a second glance. Never mind what I thought, what I saw, just ten minutes ago, when you took my hand in yours and held.  
Mary squeezes my hand. I had forgotten she is here with me. The touch turns the last remaining feelings of optimism into disgust, deep in my stomach. I want to vomit. I smile at her and squeeze back.  
“We will be having you escorted to a safe house for the time being. You and Mrs. Watson will be taken care of until this is taken care of. The infant, too, of course, if it comes to that.” Mycroft’s tone is blandly cordial again, something that might have been soothing if it came from anyone else’s mouth. The way he says it, Mrs. Watson, seems like a taunt, like a reminder of my place. I wonder, not for the first time, how much he knows. I cannot imagine Mary still being beside me if the man knew the truth.  
I wish he knew the truth.   
“You will let us know what’s happening, won’t you?” I ask, and if it sounds polite, it feels like begging. Mycroft just gives me that thin-lipped smile, and, just as you were, we are escorted to a vehicle and driven away.

-

The safe house Mycroft provides is beige. It is a small, one-bedroom place. The curtains are a heavy, drooping beige number that block out the streetlamps. The carpet is a brown ‘70s shag, obviously original, but in pretty good nick. I suppose not too many people stay here, and not for very long. Not long enough to redecorate, anyhow. The quilt in the bedroom looks like it was mass-produced to look homemade.   
It still feels more like home than the Watson’s place these days.  
Mary goes to nap almost immediately after we arrive. I search the cabinets until I find a fully-stocked liquor cabinet. I pour myself a couple of fingers of whiskey, sit on the couch, and make sure my mobile is turned to full volume, with the most obnoxious alert sounds. I don’t want to miss the text if you need me. 

-

I avoid the bedroom for as long as I can. I finish the bottle of whiskey. 

-

More often than not I wake up dreaming of you. Tonight is no exception.  
 _“Some undercover work in Eastern Europe.”  
“For how long?”  
“Six months, Mycroft estimates. He’s never wrong.”  
“And then?”  
“Who knows.”  
It occurs to me that you were never coming back, that you were going to die out there. Once my heart stops racing, I want to kill you myself. _

-

You never text.

-

I worry about you. I talk to Anthea, but she has no answers. I talk to Mycroft, but he has the politician’s skill of holding entire conversations without telling you anything with real meaning. I go to my surgery. I go to Tescos for the milk and for more whiskey. I try not to notice whoever Mycroft has tailing me that day.   
I am conflicted when he tells us we can go home. I thought you must have forgotten about me. But no. It’s only with increased surveillance that we are allowed to go back. You haven’t solved anything. I worry about you.  
You need to solve this.

-

You must have forgotten about me.  
 _“Some undercover work in Eastern Europe.”  
“For how long?”  
“Six months, Mycroft estimates. He’s never wrong.”  
“And then?”  
“Who knows.”_  
Don’t ever forget about me. Terrible things happen when you forget about me.

-

I realize I haven’t spoken to my wife in two weeks when she goes into labor.   
The doctor tells her to push. She squeezes my hand and I nearly flinch in response. I want to vomit. I smile at her and squeeze back.  
I worry about you.

-

Sometimes, when a labor goes badly, you have to choose between saving the mother and saving the child.  
I had no such luck.

-

Her name is Willow. Mary snorts, thinks it’s pretentious, or a name for a dog, but she shot you so I can pick a pretentious name if I want. You’ll laugh when you hear, or roll your eyes for the secret sentimentality. I imagine it while holding her, the way half your mouth will curve upward for a moment, how you’ll try to hide that you’re pleased.   
“Willow?” You’ll scoff. I’ll remind you that with a name like yours, you can hardly judge. “Well, I didn’t pick my name, did I?” I won’t give away that you did, and you won’t give away that she’s named after you, after all.

-

Willow wakes me from dreams and nightmares with her screaming every night. I wake up, sweat-drenched, clutching the sheets. Mary tells me she’ll get her, and I breathe and dry to forget the shape of you bleeding out in front of me. I’ve seen it too many times now.  
I’m starting to think that it doesn’t matter that the plane came back. You aren’t going to.

-

I go back to the surgery. I go early, I stay late. I go for drinks at the pub with coworkers afterwards. They ask about Mary, about Willow. I respond on reflex. I keep my mobile volume turned up. My mobile stays silent.

-

I jolt out of sleep again, sweat-drenched and clutching the sheets. I was dreaming of you again, but this time instead of fighting back tears, I fight back against the hardness in my pants.   
The way you’d move, the way you’d sound. I don’t let myself imagine it. My subconscious betrays me.   
Mary mistakes my interest as interest for her. “It’s been too long,” she says, and I’m sure it’s supposed to be seductive. She rubs her body against mine. “Remember the marriage debt,” she whispers, and laughs. I laugh with her. I think it sounds like a man drowning, but she doesn’t notice.   
And if she notices that I close my eyes and grit my teeth when I thrust in, she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t mention that I turn her over so I don’t have to look at her. And if she knows that I’m imagining you while I’m inside her, it’s something she keeps to herself.   
I bite her shoulder so I don’t shout out your name. I sit in the bathroom afterwards and refuse to look myself in the eyes. I finish another bottle of whiskey and fall asleep on the couch.   
You always mock my acting; you say I had no skill. But neither you nor she has caught on yet, it seems. 

-

I worry about you. I call Mycroft, but he’s out of country.   
I go to Bart’s, but Molly hasn’t seen you since November. She asks about you before I can.   
I go to the Yard, but Lestrade’s on holiday and I still can’t look Donovan in the eye. Dimmock hasn’t heard anything, either.  
I go to visit Mrs. Hudson, but she’s away at her sister’s. Probably Mycroft’s doing, keeping her safe.   
I go to my surgery. I go to Tescos for the milk and for more whiskey. I try not to notice whoever has been tailing me that day.   
I’ve lost my key to 221B, I guess. I can’t find it anywhere. 

-

I worry about you. It’s been four months. My mobile stays silent.

-

It was always in the back of my mind that maybe I wouldn’t have enough time to see you when Willow came. I never imagined the opposite would be true.   
Mary stays home from the surgery, she takes care of her. Mary’s never looked happier. Willow won’t stop crying.   
The house is stiflingly silent; the walls feel like they are crushing in around me, suffocating me. I go for walk after walk, and no matter how far I was, I always seem to end up in the same place. You’re never in.  
I wonder if it was all a ruse, that you went to Eastern Europe anyway. You’d be dead by now, by Mycroft’s estimates. He’s never wrong.

-

My mobile stays silent. I give up on the idea that you’ll contact me.  
I remember what it was like, when you were dead. It was a lot like this, actually.  
I’ve written down all the things I need to tell you. I’ve thrown them away. I’ve written them again, saved in drafts on my mobile or on my laptop, hidden away where I hope Mary can’t find them. I nearly send them to you, but I think better of it. You’d scoff at the sentiment. I throw them away.

-

Lestrade texts me and we go out for pints after I get off of a shift at the surgery. We talk about football, about how we’re too busy to follow football. I lie about how things are going with my wife, and you do the same. The topic inevitably turns to you.  
“I called him in for a case about two weeks ago, but you weren’t there. Can’t blame ya, busy with the little one and all, I’ll bet. Still, you must make time to see the bloke; he’s not nearly that friendly when you aren’t around.”   
My stomach drops. “I haven’t seen or heard anything from him in seven months,” I admit, and it’s like I’ve been punched.   
It seems that way to Lestrade, too. “Nah, that can’t be right. That’d be… when? The Moriarty thing? I figured you two got that all sorted and moved on. Besides, he wouldn’t shut up about you. It was getting to be annoying, to be honest. I thought Donovan was going to strangle him.” He laughs around his pint glass until he looks at me. My face must say it all. “You really haven’t seen each other?” I shake my head ‘no’. “He’s never that friendly unless you’re around.” The rest of the night, Lestrade looks almost as bad as I feel. He keeps on repeating it. “He’s never that friendly unless you’re around.”

-

I’m drunk when I get home, but that’s nothing new. Mary and Willow have gone to sleep. I grab the whiskey. I don’t bother with glasses anymore.  
It runs in my brain, over and over, _he’s never that friendly unless you’re around_.  
I wonder if you’ve replaced me. It’d be easy enough, and you’ve given me the wife and child, the suburban life every man dreams of.   
I think about Janine. I shudder. Seven times a night in Baker Street. You in your dressing gowns in Baker Street, you in the palace with nothing but a sheet covering yourself. You, in the living room at 2 am, swaying softly to your music, hair askew, hands fingering the notes on your violin. You have very talented hands, according to the papers. According to Janine. I find myself getting hard despite myself, and I think about your hands, your hips as I attempt to terminate the issue. I try not to think of you and Irene, you and Janine as I do so, of a tall beauty with dark hair on top of a tall beauty with dark hair. I bite back a sob when I come. I stumble into the bathroom and wash myself discreetly. I don’t need to wake Mary. I go to sleep on the couch. I sleep on the couch most nights. I turn my mobile to silent. 

-

“Drugs,” Lestrade tells me in lieu of a hello. _He’s never that friendly unless you’re around_.   
I’m just glad it’s not someone else.  
“You should call him,” he says, as if it’s that simple. It’s been eight months. What can I say to you? _Hello, want to go out for a pint?_ You’d tell me last time we tried that was a disaster. _Hello, why aren’t you taking me on crime scenes anymore?_ Because I have a wife and child to worry about, obviously. _Hello, I need to leave my wife, I need to be with you, I love you._ I can’t even imagine the reaction I’d get from that. Scorn? Laughter?   
Just because you haven’t replaced me yet doesn’t mean you haven’t already thrown me away.  
I pull out my phone. I open a new text message. I put my phone away.

-

It’s Tuesday night, and I’m pissed again. I went out with Harry, and she told me to stop drinking, and boy, wasn’t that a trip. I told her just where she could put her hypocritical advice. I’m feeling bold tonight. _Fuck it_ , I decide, and call your number.  
You don’t pick up.  
Of course you don’t pick up.  
But then, suddenly, it’s nearly your voicemail, and I don’t know what to say. So I hang up, and I try again, this time rehearsing inviting you to dinner over and over in my head as the dial tone drones on.  
I hear your voice, prerecorded, and everything I was about to say flies out the window. I try to speak but there’s something in my throat, something trying to stay lodged inside of me. Normally, it would have prevented my speech, but I’ve had enough to drink to lubricate the vocal chords, to push out the truth.  
“You cock,” I hear myself slurring. “Why haven’t you called? I thought you would text, at least. Why couldn’t you do that? Why couldn’t you just tell me something straightforward, like ‘I love you’? Why’d you have to tell me your goddamn first name? I… I need to get out of here. I love you. Tell me you love me, please? Even if it’s a lie. I need… I need to get out.”  
I have no idea how much of the message records. All of it? None of it? My mobile slides out of my hands and I go to get ready for bed.   
Mary is in the hallway. 

-

She won’t look me in the eye.  
But I know she won’t leave me either. Not when she says “Come to bed”, like it will wipe away what I just confessed to you.   
Not when she doesn’t mention it in the morning, when I wake up and go back to the surgery, bleary-eyed and past hungover.

-

I go to my surgery. I go to Tescos for the milk and for more whiskey. I try not to notice that no one has been tailing me today.   
I check my mobile, again and again. The only thing that changes is the time, minute by minute. 

-

When it says that Mycroft is calling, I feel sick. I feel like I know already.  
It doesn’t soften the blow at all when I hear the words.

-

When you died the first time, people brought me flowers, people bought me chocolates, people called almost constantly to make sure I was alright. No one calls this time.  
Mycroft texts me the funeral date.

-

The difficult thing about you faking your death is that I’m not sure I should believe it the second time around. It’s an open-casket funeral this time. Overdose is a prettier look on you than a suicidal head injury, and it’s easier to believe when I can see you, when I can smell the embalming fluid over the heavy scent of lilies.  
I recycle the eulogy I kept from the first funeral and add a paragraph. No one seems to notice.  
It’s been nine months since I last saw you on the tarmac.   
This is the first time Willow has met her secret namesake, and she won’t stop screaming.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The East Wind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3878830) by [YoursTruly (Lyscey)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyscey/pseuds/YoursTruly)




End file.
